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CORRECTION: Proposed Energy Projects to Improve Delivery in Jefferson County

Posted on: Monday, 25 July 2005, 18:01 CDT

Jul. 20--The story slugged MW-ENERGY-PROJECTS, filed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News for Jul. 20 misstated the voltage level of the planned 15-mile line in the third paragraph. The line would be a 138,000-volt line.

Please delete the previous version of the story and use the following corrected one.

Proposed energy projects would improve power delivery in Jefferson County, Wis.

By Thomas Content

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Jul. 20--Two energy projects proposed Tuesday are designed to improve the reliability and efficiency of electric power delivery in fast-growing Jefferson County.

American Transmission Co., the Pewaukee company that owns and runs major power lines in eastern Wisconsin, proposed a $21 million to $22 million project, a 15-mile power line through Lake Mills that would run from the town of Jefferson to the town of Waterloo.

The project is needed to prevent power failures forecast in 2008, the company says in a filing. If approved, the 138,000-volt line would be built in 2006.

Jefferson County, whose population has grown 14 percent since 1990, is a key area for shoring up power reliability, partly because it is between two population centers that are home to two different utilities, according to Maripat Blankenheim, an ATC spokeswoman.

"It's the next area that's really starting to get built up," she said.

The company started evaluating a project in the Lake Mills area two years ago. As it began making plans, the company learned that three subdivisions were in the planning stages for farmland that it was considering for the power line, Blankenheim said.

Separately, We Energies of Milwaukee proposed a $22 million project to improve the efficiency of a natural gas-fired power plant in Watertown in Jefferson County.

The project for the Concord Generating Station involves installing higher-efficiency turbine parts and blades on two of the four combustion turbines at the plant.

The project would increase the company's generating capacity by about 12 megawatts by June, We Energies said.

The Concord plant, currently generating a maximum of 345 megawatts, was built in 1993 and '94 at a cost of $107 million. Replacing the blades is necessary because the plant has been used much more frequently this year than in previous years.

It is one of several natural gas-fired power plants that have been running more often this year, since the Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator launched a wholesale power market in April. The arrangement took over control of deciding which power plants across a 15-state region will be running at any given time.

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Copyright (c) 2005, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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WEC, LNT,

Source: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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